By Andika Gunadarma
Like in a game of chess, you always sacrifice your pawns to save your king or to distract your opponent attention while you plan your next move. There is no mystery in it.
In this case Gayus “the catfish” (I called him that because he looks like one big fat catfish) is just one of the (many) pawns, and possibly also many kings. I counted at least 4 kings, one in the tax office, one in the police, attorney general (AGO) and one in the tax court. These people are the mastermind behind this scandal. But unfortunately people attention already focuses on him and him alone right now even his self-righteous lawyer.
So their plan of diversion is working.
Ever since this case was brought up by Susno (also one of the expendable pawns) last year, most of us wonder, “how in earth that a low-ranking tax officer can get ten million US dollar in less than 5 year of work?” Some of us also wonders, “Who gave him those of money?”
But none of us ever question, “Is that really his money?” or he’s only holding it for someone else?
The most important and terrifying fact that I found during my investigation is that although Gayus might seems like a fat retarded guy, with crazy eyes, and bad teeth he is NOT stupid. This was also underestimate by those 4 kings.
Knowing this piece of evidence alone has been given me nightmares.
The fact that he is still alive right now to me is not because he has some critical information about the whole shenanigans but simply because he is the only one who has access to the money. The 4 kings have to guarantee his safety if they don’t want to loose their shares of the entire pillage.
Come on, bare with me here.
Let’s assume you own several big-huge-billions-dollar mining companies but don’t want to pay taxes. Well who doesn’t?
You need someone within the tax office that you can trust to create a shady deal.
As a public figure and with your credibility at stakes you wouldn’t want a bottom feeder like Gayus to handle the “deal”, you would need a high-ranking officer there, and it would be best if you could shake hands with the one on top of the “food chain”. The first king, tax king.
Now the tax king is not stupid either, he has to make sure that he has an exit plan, to ensure his safety, and reputation if anything should ever go wrong he has to be sure that all the evidence will point to the other direction (or other guy). In this Internet and social-networking age, one thing these people fear the most is the media attention, because it will blow the shit right into the fan with light speed and it will be too late and too expensive to fix.
So all he has to do is to find some low-ranking officers in his office that is stupid and greedy enough to be his pawns. The king gave them promise of wealth, career and security for their family. Which is irrelevant, because these low-ranking officers wouldn’t dare to refuse any order from their king anyway.
But they did it anyway just to unsure loyalty.
This method was also conducted in similar fashion by the other kings. They appointed their pawns, to do their dirty work.
It is very clever, because if anything should happen even in the worst-case scenario, like in case one of the king get caught by the KPK, and decided to turn state evidence, it will not reach as far as the other kings. The evidence will stop and pointed to these pawns. In this situation, media attention will be focused on these pawns as well, and create even wider gap between them (kings) and their money.
And I can bet you that this method also played in many other government institutions. It will not stop KPK from arresting those kings but it will make it harder, much harder.
You would have guessed that Antasari case was all about murder, wouldn’t you?
It is not. It’s about a deal between kings that went sour, its about one girl that until today we never heard from her again, its about an escrow account…Yes it’s all about the money.
These pawns are working as a team they have person to deal with the police pawns; other with the AGO, the tax court and one of them should be in charged as the “treasury” or “the book keeper”. Since all the payment has to go through the tax office, this “book keeper” role should be played by one of the pawns from the tax office.
That is where Gayus was called in and accept that role, and you probably have also heard some other name such as Radja Erisman, Edmon Eliyas and Cirus Sinaga. Those three are the pawns for the police king and the AGO king.
Every time those kings need money they call him, they need a new house or car or put their children to school aboard they call him, and he will gave them the money. If it’s a car they wanted it should be bought under his name, if it’s money they want he will bring hard cash. They are not stupid enough to do these transaction using wire transfer, because the internal-audit alarm will sound for any transaction above Rp.200 million, especially those that was made by government officer.
These kings always managed kept their hands clean.
But learning from history where they (corrupt) predecessors had been arrested by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), thrown into prison, some of them got heart attack, even died in prison.
Those facts had made them evolved into more sophisticated, meticulous, and paranoid criminal.
Since Gayus is the only one who has access to the money always have the upper hands. He will not share the same fate like the rest of those bottom feeders.
This is how I figure it out.
Fact number one:
For a guy (Indonesian guy) who has more than $10 million he is way too humble. It’s true that he lives in a big house and drives a nice car. Maybe he has more houses and more cars, well he doesn’t. We all saw his father house and his old house. If he have all that money to himself it would’ve been hard to keep it in a safe since you can’t put them in your bank account, most corruptor kept their stash by buying properties, or gold. So what stopping him to do the same?
The answer to that is because those are NOT HIS MONEY.
Fact number two:
This is logic, “You can’t make or steal $10 million and hide it by your selves”, not in this country, not for a guy like him; he can’t even make $5000 alone. He must have someone helping him, an accomplice. This person could be his wife, his relatives, his co-worker, basically someone he can trust. Gayus can’t make any deal or forfeit a tax report without his senior/supervisor (his boss) signature. He can’t manipulate police report or tax court preceding without help from those other pawns. He can’t create an offshore escrow account(s) without a tip and connection from those business people who pays the bribe money.
He’s not stupid, but he is not that bright either.
Fact number three
Getting caught on camera watching a tennis match in Bali despite any speculation why he was stupid enough to be there in the first place, was not how he wore that ridiculous wig, or how the photographer managed to recognize him but for a felon who “escaped” incarceration he was disturbingly calmed, as if no harm will able to touch him. He was so relaxed, there could only two possibility for a person in his situation could pull a stunt like that was either he is conically retarded (with a death wish) or he has someone protecting him. Either way the plan for those kings to put the heat on him instead of them is working beautifully. We could see on most headlines on this was all about “how powerful Gayus was” (even the economist wrote that way).
Some people are trying (hard) to draw a connection between his Bali trips to one of the wealthiest man in this country that happened to be there at the same time. Coincidence? I don’t think so. The question that we should ask here is, why a man with that status would risk his reputation so recklessly? The answer to that is because he didn’t know that Gayus would be there. Again, the only possible reason why Gayus was there was not to incriminate him, but to drawn public attention on him…him alone.
Why?
Yes, now we’re asking the right question. Why should they treat him differently? He’s only a low-ranking officer. Well, it is for all the right reason, because he’s still has their money as leverage.
Gayus has bargaining power, one power that he probably just realized he has when he was arrested in Singapore. Yes, I saw the clip where two of our so-cal-anti-mafia team was “accidently” bump into him in an Indonesian diner there. I could see that the two well-known public figures were talking to him (almost looked like they were begging) for him to go with them back to our country.
You see, this is very, very rare because we don’t usually treat criminal like that, our law enforcement were not suppose to negotiate. I saw criminal being dragged, choked, poked, shoved, and yelled. Our police often put a bullet into a criminal leg, and/or beat he light out of them. Then come another clip (supposedly taken by a hidden camera) where they negotiate some more in his hotel room, but I knew that it was staged. I saw how they carried out their conversation, it's very relaxed, you can even hear some tiny laugh was broken there.
Come on, you all saw what happened with Bibit and Chandra, how they treated them, or how they treated Antasari, and those people from DPR and former high-ranking officers.
Now compare those with how they treated Gayus, Artalyta and Rani Juliani.
If it weren’t because of media coverage, Artalita would’ve sipping Singapore Sling in Singapore right now while having her nails done where she was suppose to be in prison.
For a country that doesn’t have a witness protection program, we sure are spoiling them, “protecting” them not from those who want to silence them, but from us, so we can all stay ignorance and those kings can negotiate their share.
Right now, the public attention, anguish and hatred already on Gayus. For him it doesn’t matter anymore, he got nothing to loose. Even if his share only 10% out of those $10 million it is still millions times more that he can make if he was clean. And looking back to our history of corruption verdicts, he will probably go to prison for less than 7 year. The question is, are you willing to trade your 7 years of freedom for $1million? Knowing that you will not be able to make that much money even if you are working for 50 years without eating.
It is a deafening reality of our beloved country.
These kings have played us like a dog, barking at the wrong tree.
The phrase “Conspiracy to commit crime” is merely just another distant echoes that nobody would even care.
Hopefully we still have the last laugh…because these kings are laughing at us right now.
